Well, as I stated in a previous post, I am changing service providers. Based on what seemed to be a very favourable bundle price from TELUS and a lack of interest in my current service provider to match, I booked the installation date with TELUS last Saturday. This was a big decision for me. I was a loyal Shaw customer and despite only recalling three major service interruptions in about ten years, any opportunity to save money can not be ignored.

I was very surprised on the Friday prior to the installation date to receive a call from TELUS, albeit an automated call from their customer voice response unit asking me to confirm my appointment. The instructions were clear and simple. Within 30 seconds my appointment had been confirmed for Saturday between 0800 and 1000.

The TELUS technician called around 0815 Saturday morning and advised that he had to ensure the service was properly connected to the correct port and once confirmed, he would be arriving at my residence. This proved to take longer than he originally expected, but he kept us informed and arrived onsite at around 1015.

He was conscientious and pleasant. He questioned me a number of times asking if I had ever worked for TELUS as I seemed to be more knowledgable in his area of expertise than he was used to. I assured him I have not but that I did have some background in telecommunications and networking.

The service was activated and tested by 1200 successfully.

I am on day three of using the service. The Internet service is better than Shaw with speed tests showing a very positive, consistent rate of 23 to 25Mbps download and 1 to 1.3Mbps upload. This is on a subscribed rate of 15Mbps! I was generally averaging 12 to 14Mbps on Shaw.

The TELUS Optic TV service is quite literally amazing! The Cisco Systems based PVR and Digital boxes are much more aesthetically pleasing than the comparable HD tuners from Shaw. Surfing the channel guide, watching and pausing live TV and recording shows is very intuitive and responsive. My wife was sold within the first thirty minutes.

First impressions always remain to be the most important. If TELUS can continue on this path and provide the kind of service that I have received, I predict that they have a winner.

About Grant Fengstad

6 Comments

Shaw’s customer retention/loyalty department appears to have since woken up, and I’m not getting a great deal (significantly cheaper then Optik) on my phone/internet/tv with added perks as well. Shame they didn’t do it sooner.

Shaw’s customer retention/loyalty department appears to have since woken up, and I’m NOW getting a great deal (significantly cheaper then Optik) on my phone/internet/tv with added perks as well. Shame they didn’t do it sooner.

FWIW we switched from Shaw to Telus Optik as well just about a month ago now, and we’re really happy with it! The Internet is nice and consistent (and faster than Shaw), and the TV experience is an order of magnitude better than what we had with Shaw. I’m not sure if Shaw has updated their PVR’s at all, but the interface was clunky, cumbersome, and wrought with recording errors (blackout blips in HD recorded shows, strange compression artifacting, terrible options for playback, slow skip-ahead, etc. etc.). The Cisco hardware for the Optik setup is class-leading media center stuff. The only thing I notice is the HD compression isn’t as nice as the Shaw feed, but it’s still good enough.

I venture to guess that we’ll likely switch back to Shaw or [insert competitor here] in about 3 years, or transition to Internet streaming or something, but for the time being, we’re happy with the deal, the hardware, the service, and in Canada, traditional delivery of television won’t be going away any time soon.

I’m 2 1/2 months or so into my service and couldn’t be much happier. The only issue I have discovered was with the Cisco IPTV PVR loosing its’ DHCP address and going back to a loopback address (127.0.0.1) two or three times. Unfortunately of course, the result is that you lose all traffic and have no TV output. The only resolution was to reboot the PVR and have it come back online.

TELUS indicated that this was a known issue that was resolved with a newer firmware on the DHCP server, which was installed two weeks ago on my service. I’ve had no problems since.

Grant, would love to hear where your satisfaction is at a year in. I am considering switching from Shaw to Telus due to some very poor customer service decisions, namely their intention to charge me a second service fee because my inlaws live in our basement suite (have been for 10 years). Shaw feels justified in charging their service on a per outlet basis, not per home. Of course they are willing to wave this additional charge if I add their phone service to our bundle – pure extortion.

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I would not have ever though of myself as a 'blogger'.

I enjoy a number of things and believe that I have learned and grown in my experiences over the years so in the spirit of sharing, I thought a blog would be an interesting way to give my thoughts and views on all things I find interesting.